Thanks for your kind words, Daniela. To my way of thinking, long, complicated phrases NEVER demonstrate superior comprehension of language. Instead, they just reveal someone who hasn’t learned to self-edit!

And, I suspect, you were a diligent student of this writing teacher. Keep up the good work, LJ!

Yes, and the Hemingway App has contributed to this misperception. It treats every long sentence as a problem when long sentences are sometimes valuable for the variation and rhythm they give our writing. Thanks for the book recommendation. I hadn’t heard of it but will take al look for it now.

The other great thing about short sentences is that it’s much harder to make grammatical mistakes with them!

You’re very welcome, Abby. Collaborative editing can be very challenging. I try to discourage my clients from using track changes and, instead, ask them to TALK to me about any problems they have with my copy. (Your typical person would not dare to question an accountant about a spreadsheet; it always amazes me to see how many people view themselves as experts on writing, however.)

Glad you found my post useful, Luci. You make an excellent point about the importance of variation in sentence length. As I said above, the occasional 60-word sentence is perfectly okay as long as you balance it off with some one- to five-word ones.

I’m not a grammar expert, Jagadish. I suspect, however, it relates to the nature of the verb. “We made him say” would be a compound verb, with the “made” directly linked to the “say.” The rule may be different in other languages. I’m hoping there’s a reader of my blog who can dive in here and give a better grammatical explanation.

Good suggestion, Abby! If you regularly have to gasp for breath when you’re reading your text, that’s a sign that some of your sentences are too long.